


fuck the gossip mill, fuck the fancy suits

by ghost_lingering



Category: Hard Core Logo
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-12-25
Updated: 2006-12-25
Packaged: 2017-10-04 03:54:57
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,776
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25650
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ghost_lingering/pseuds/ghost_lingering
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>you can't even begin to fuck this up</p>
            </blockquote>





	fuck the gossip mill, fuck the fancy suits

**Author's Note:**

  * For [dayse](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dayse/gifts).



> [written for Yuletide 2006.](http://www.yuletidetreasure.org/archive/25/fuckthe.html) Posting here for safe keeping.

i.

There are rumors. There are always rumors: Joe was never dead, he was only faking it, just like he faked Bucky's death to lure Billy back to Hard Core Logo. They said the empty grave was the proof, the empty grave was the cop-out, the fake-out, his death was a sell-out, the faked death was a sell-out, he never sold out, he only sold out. They said: Joe was an alcoholic; Joe was a coke head; Joe took anti-depressants; Joe stole John Oxenberger's anti-depressants; Joe was a genius; Joe was a legend; Joe died of AIDS; Joe was shot by a fan; Billy shot Joe. There are rumors, rumors, rumors, fucking rumors.

If Joe had hadn't shot himself in the head, Billy likes to think the rumors would have killed him, but Billy knows better. Nothing could have killed the damn fuck but his own two hands. Billy prepares himself for the questions; Hard Core Logo's fame--notoriety--now that Joe's dead means that suddenly he's not just the new member of Jennifur anymore. It means he's wanted, number one, not number two, that his answers are the burning goldmine, the fucking Holy Grail, the sweet spit of Jesus in a cup. They ask him to describe Joe, to categorize him, box him up for publication and Billy half smiles and says: "He was Joe man, you can't describe him" though he can think of a million and one ways he could start to try.

Mostly, Billy tries to tune it out, tries to let it slide. Tries not to take the time to correct the misconceptions. Joe was all about misconception, anyway, and Billy is too busy with the custody battle to be able to worry about the people's mouths flapping. Mary coming to him (her kid already halfway grown and fucked for life with a boy's name) and asking for money saying the kid was Joe's (and hell, maybe it was for all Billy cared or knew), and pissed as fuck that she wasn't the only person Joe had fucked over in his life was the gunshot to the funeral pallor--Billy didn't want this kid to grow up in around all that hate, her mother's hate like Joe's hate, he doesn't want some kid to live with that. He's surprised he even cares.

When he wins the case, out of money, out of sheer dumb luck, out of DNA bullshit, a magician's trick (the empty coffin the hat the rabbit came from) he walks out of the court room with this kid, this other Billy, this piece of Joe, and he's not at all sure what exactly he's supposed to do. He's never raised a kid before, never been a mother, father, both. When they get in the car she flips the radio dial.

"You like that, kid?" he asks, wanting to light up a cigarette, but too worried about the ash in her eyes. "It sounds like all talking. Don't you want some music, or something?"

"Not the screaming kind" she says, "Not the kind that my mother likes." She narrows her eyes and looks over at him, sizing him up. He's used to that kind of look--from reporters, from agents, from Joe. She leans back in her seat and fiddles with the seat belt. "Not your kind of music," she says, "I don't like that. This is NPR." She turns the volume up, blaring it out the windows. She's a rebel. He can't begin to even fuck this up.

ii.

There are rumors. There are always rumors. Joe pisses in an exec's face and drink and Billy leaves the band--of course there'll be talk. But all it was was Billy leaving for sunny sunny LA, ignoring that phantom ache from all the nights he and Joe got too fucked to forget not to mess around. He smiles at the right people, orders the right drinks, and smokes a better brand of cigarettes so that people won't say a word.

LA's a sunny town, a shinning town, town of angels, wings to the sky, and a few million people who don't know Joe Dick from the bum on the street. Part of it is freeing, but part is just this constant reminder: not here, not here, not here. He's clean and he's free and he doesn't get why the beat in his head of: _They picked up some hookers. They trashed the hotel room. They took the cash. They, they, they, Joe 'n Bill._

John calls him every now and again, but he loses track of Pipe, and Joe. Joe. Billy still gets Christmas cards from Joe's parents, even if they don't send anything to their real son. It isn't fair, Billy knows, isn't fair about the coke up Joe's nose, the come down Billy's shorts, the Christmas cards on Billy's shelves, the whole shebang. Ben and Shelia are their names, Joe's parents, and the fact that they never blamed Billy for the begging and pleading, Billy's "we'll never know if we don't try", Billy's coke and whiskey.

He was their second son, their prodigal son, their project son. Sometimes it was their idea that he stay over, sometimes it was his, climbing in the window, slipping into Joe's warm bed. When he and Joe finally (finally!) weren't boys any longer, didn't drink the hot chocolate Shelia made, didn't have to mow the lawn when Ben asked, Joe's parents never blamed Billy for the band life, road life, the hard core life.

When they recorded their first record Joe leaned over, in the alley out back, when they were smoking, and he spit at Billy's feet. That was a first time. He kissed Billy just after, and that was a first and last time--the first time Joe kissed Bill, the last time he ever did it sober. The drinking started just after. "I'll make you," he slurred into the bed sheets, "I'll be your mother father both."

In all of Ben and Shelia's cards there are pictures of the baby Jesus, haloed and tiny, some variation of the words "May we bless the day of the birth of Jesus Christ" on the inside. Billy doesn't think that they are trying to tell him something, still trying to raise the punk out of him and raise the Christian in, but, then again, he didn't know. They never got their real son in seminary; maybe they were still trying with the makeshift son, the adopted son. The son that got out.

iii.

There are rumors. There are always rumors. A new band's on the start up and everyone wants to know: what's their deal, what's their edge, what's their catch. They say that Billy Tallent has the fingers of a God, that they move like fire flickering, the strings and the notes all furious on the edge of danger; and they say that their singer, their lead man, the fronter, they say...they say a lot of things. They say he's a college boy (_fuck that_, he says back), they say he's a coke head (_working on it_, he says back), they say that he's a fag (_whose fucking business is it of yours_, he screams, smirks, glints back, middle finger in the air).

Behind the scenes, Joe's the clean one, Billy's the driven one; Joe's the straight shooter, Billy's the fucker; Joe's the one whose parents disowned him when he said: "Hard Core Logo's my life now."

"What about college," they said, "What about your degree?"

"Hey," he said, "I used a Latin word in the name. It's gonna be with me for the rest of my fucking life."

Billy's the one who pushed for the band, for Joe to drop the school act, Joe who was smart enough to understand all those Latin classes, all those tests, all those fucking cases. Billy's the one who bolstered the boy up with whiskey, Billy's the one who said: "We'll own the fucking stars."

Pipe and John, Billy likes them, loves them, puts up with them, but it's Joe, Joe the shit, who he wanted to make the band for. Billy is the one that pushes in the right spots then steps back, just so, letting Joe take the blame (or the glory, depending on the point of view). He remembers the night they came up with the names--Tallent, Dick--how he looked at Joe the whole time and maybe, once during the night, forgot to think and kissed him.

Billy's the one who dragged at Joe, dragged, until suddenly suddenly Joe was dragging back. They raised each other, but never (never never) very well.

iv.

Billy walked into the classroom after a year of juvie and Joe was still looking at him like he was the guy who hung the moon. That's something no one ever ever ever knew about them--they never meet when they were 16 and 17, it was when they were 8 and 9; it was just that those years didn't quite count because Dick and Tallent weren't around yet.

But 16 and 17--they were different numbers, they were the types of numbers that meant there was no more "clean your room Joe" or "do your homework Joe" or "get the fuck out of my fucking way Billy" or "kid, did you take my whiskey again?" They were the types of numbers that meant you could get a job, fuck a job off, skip math and never have it mean a thing. They were in high school still, Billy just barely, Joe drifting farther and farther away each day, only there because he didn't quite want to displease his parents. The guidance counselors threw their hands up, two of the brightest kids in the school and neither gave a damn beyond the music.

"It's rubbish," the teachers tried to say, but the boys just leaned back in their chairs and looked up.

They smoked out back, behind the school, kicking at the rocks, getting cold with thin jackets and no hats and a biting sort of wind.

"We should start a band, you and me," Billy said, once, wearing the shit-eating grin Joe later says he coined.

"There'll be rumors," Joe said, "about our families and stuff."

(By which he meant Billy's family, but no one needed to say that for everyone to hear it.)

Billy hit the back of Joe's head, leaned over and kissed his cheek, a wet lick, a bite. Joe rubbed it off with a "fuck you, what the fuck?"

But Billy kept grinning. "There are always rumors," he said, "Let them talk. Let's give them something to talk about."


End file.
